Do I prefer structure or chaos?

Dear EQuipped Leaders,

How are you this morning?

I’m taking deep breaths and reminding myself that all my feelings are okay. I’m uncomfortable with my feelings. Still!

October is almost over, and I’m super duper thankful. I have a lot of emotional meltdowns in October. I’ve started putting them on my calendar and realizing that this is just a hard time of year for me. I’m trying to get curious, not judgmental, about why that is.

My son’s school district actually scheduled a week-long fall break in October this year in response to the level of teacher burnout and teachers quitting in October. So that makes me feel weirdly better that I’m not alone. Seems like a lot of people hit a wall this month.

What is October like for you? Your family? Your school community? Your classroom?

Wherever you are, thank you for being here with me today. I want to keep it light and talk about personality today.

The Applied EQ Group Trainings include an EASEL training for teachers to get to know how their personality impacts their classroom. Part of it includes the Big 5 personality framework. And today, I want to focus on one of my favorite aspects of personality: conscientiousness.

Where do you fall on the spectrum of conscientiousness? If you prefer a lot of structure, you might be highly conscientious. If you thrive in chaos, you might be lower on conscientiousness. Neither is good nor bad. We need all types. But that can be hard to remember in real life because Why don’t you see the world like me?!?

It’s taking me a long time to realize that the world feels really different to all of us. And the only way to really connect is to be able to be aware of ourselves and communicate our experience with others.

If you are highly conscientious, here are some strengths and weaknesses you might relate to:

A question for growth for you highly conscientious people:

If you are lower on conscientiousness, here are some of your potential strengths and weaknesses:

A question for growth for you chaos lovers:

If everyone is starting to drive you nuts, this might be a helpful way to see yourself and those you work with differently. Maybe y’all work differently. Maybe your differences are healthy for the team but annoying to you. Maybe there is a way you can better honor yourself and your coworkers and students who are different from you.

If you’re struggling to see how you’re going to make it through the school year, maybe you can ask yourself what you need in this moment to better accommodate your personality. For example, I’m highly conscientious, and I’ve dropped a lot of my self care practices lately as I’ve been traveling. I’m realizing that I need to slow down for a bit and get more structure in my weekly routine and find ways to take better care of myself.

Wherever this lands for you today, I hope you’re doing well. And if you’re not, that’s okay too–I feel you. My plan is to eat the chocolate out of my son’s trick-or-treat haul next week to celebrate October ending and to remember that feelings are temporary. I will not be in this phase forever.

Stay Soft, Elizabeth